Sunday, December 30, 2018

Howdy and hello my crafty friends! I'm enjoying my extra time off from work by completing yet another Altenew Academy class. I'm making it a priorty to continue my work towards my Altenew Educator Certification! The class I just finished was called Celebrations: Stencil Techniques and the teacher was Laurel Beard. Seriously a great class! Yet again jam packed with all sorts of ideas on how to use and create your own stencils!

I started by using the Doodled Lace Cover die to cut out a thick piece of cardstock as well as a thin piece.

I took the thin piece of cardstock and taped it down to a scratch piece of paper. I liberally sponged on Victorian Velvet distress ink until I happy with the color. I don't reach for this color very often but I don't know why. It's gorgeous! I took a pair of scissors and started cutting apart all of the floral elements.

Back to that thick piece of cardstock. I taped it down to a gray piece of cardstock. I dug around and found my stash of embossing paste. I squished my Hickory Smoke distress ink pad down on to my glass mat. Then I took a scoop of paste out and mixed it with the ink. I did this several times until the paste was as dark as I wanted it to be. I used a plastic spatula to spread this over the top of the die cut cardstock. I worked quickly so the paste wouldn't dry our before I was done. Once it was smoothed out I removed the die cut paper and cleaned up my tools. This is very important when working with embossing paste!

I set this aside for a little while until the paste was dry. Then I started fitting the cut out floral pieces into the embossing paste piece. I glued the pieces in place with a liquid glue.

Here it is with all of the pieces glued in place.

I took the completed panel and attached it to a white, side fold A2 card base. I took my Wink of Stella marker and went over the leaf and heart shapes. Now...how to add a sentiment. I didn't want to cover up the cool background! I found a small I Miss You sentiment in the Hug Me set from Altenew. I masked off the "I" and stamped it on white paper with Hickory Smoke Distress Oxide ink. I sprinkled on clear embossing powder and melted it with my heat tool.

I cut it down to a small strip and angle cut the right side. I put foam tape on the back and glued it on the background. I really love the look of the embossing paste! I tried to capture the dimension in the photo below.

This class was a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to the next one! Thanks so much for stopping by. I really do appreciate it!

Friday, December 28, 2018

I took a break from my Altenew Educator Certification Program classes so I could keep up with the holidays. Now that the big one is over, I'm back at it!

The class I did this time is called Let It Shine. It's all about ways to add shine, glitter and glitz without having to use a lot. The instructor had lots of great tips using everything from enamel dots to mirror cardstock. In fact, she had so many awesome ideas that I had a hard time choosing which one I wanted to focus on! I actually started two different cards but finally picked one. The other one I have turned into a birthday card for my son.

Here is my completed card.

I started with a an A2 sized piece of white Neenah 110lb paper. Near the bottom of the paper I placed a piece of 1/4" Scor-Tape. I then placed a strip of 1/8" Scor-Tape above and below it. Next I picked out a blue and teal glitter from my stash. I carefully peeled up the 1/4" tape backing to reveal the sticky side. I sprinkled the glitter over the strip, dumped off the extra and burnished it with my finger. Yep, I totally got my glitter on today! I cleaned my craft mat using a piece of a dry swiffer cloth to pick up the glitter. Then I repeated the process with the 1/8" strips and the teal glitter.

Check out all that shimmer!!

On to phase two! I had already picked out the stamp and die set that I wanted to use. Mega Greetings 2 and the Mega You die. I took a scrap piece of white cardstock and rubbed the Starlight Blue ink pad all over it. It was the closest Altenew blue ink to the blue glitter that I used. I went over the paper a couple of times until I got complete saturation. I did dry it with my heat tool because I used quite a lot of ink!

I took the paper and the You die to my die cutter and ran it through. Now, I also took my glitter piece and ran it through the die cutter as well. Making sure to keep all the inner pieces. I then took the blue You and inlaid it into the glitter piece. I popped the inner part of the Y and the O bits back in from the glitter piece.

As you can see in the picture above, I cut about an 1" and a 1/2 off of the white glitter piece. Now on to the card base. I cut white cardstock to an A2 horizontal, top fold card base. I took a piece of teal cardstock from my stash and cut it to A2 as well. Then I used Versamark ink to stamp a pinstripe pattern on the teal piece. I thought it looked a little plain but I didn't want anything too distracting. I did give it a quick dry with my heat tool since Versamark stays wet longer than dye inks.

I glued this directly onto the card base. Next I applied a liberal amount of foam tape to the back of the glitter piece and adhered it in the center of the card base. Almost done! I did want to add the stamped sentiment "are loved" to the card as well. I took another scrap piece of white paper and rubbed Teal Cave ink on it. Once it was throughly covered, I dried it with my heat tool. I went over it with anti-static powder and stamped it in Versamark ink. Then I sprinkled on white embossing powder and melted it with my heat tool.

I cut it down to a rectangle and played around to find just the right placement. Once I figured it out, I added foam tape to the back and adhered it in place. I thought about adding a few embellishments but I think the glitter strip adds enough glitter and glitz! I hope that comes through in the photos!!

Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Hey there fellow 2 Cute Ink fans! I'm here with a winter themed project to share with you today.

Isn't this Winter Cardinal just the cutest darn thing ever? I know, I say that about all of Heidi's stamps but I just can't help myself. First off, you can get your hands on this digital stamp right HERE.

I decided to use my colored pencils to color up this little cutie. I also picked my colors based on the patterned papers I had picked out. All of the colored pencils I used are Prismacolors.

Red PC122, PC926, PC195, PC930

Green PC908, PC911, PC912

Brown PC1082, PC941, PC140

Blue PC901

Snow PC1059

I used Gamsol and a blending stub to smooth out the pencils. I forgot how lovely the colors look when blended with Gamsol. All of the layers were cut out using circle dies from Elizabeth Craft Designs. The patterned paper is from Echo Park's Deck the Hall paper pad. For the cardbase layer I used a brown from Stampin Up.

I cut all of the layers out and glued everything together. For the final touches, I added Star Dust Stickles to the snowflakes and Frosted Lace Stickles to the snow. All done! Now grab this digital stamp for yourself and get to crafting!

Monday, December 10, 2018

Howdy one and all! I'm here today with my latest submission for the Altenew Educator Certification program. The class I just finished was called For The Guys. Yep, cards for the boys/men in your life! This is an area that I definitely struggle with so I was thrilled to see it on the list of classes to complete!

There were lots of great suggestions in the class that I am filing away in my brain. I decided to run with the idea of using a geometric pattern. It sounded so easy when I came up with the idea! Here it is...

I inked up another stamp set that has been sitting around waiting for me to give it some love, Trigonometry. I thought this would be just the perfect set to use for a guy card.

I started by picking the spot on my cardstock where I wanted the bottom of the triangle to be. Basically I just moved around one of the stamps until I felt it looked right. Then I used a T ruler to draw a top and bottom line. I needed these as a reference point to keep me going straight. This is when I dug out my mini Misti. I'm not sure I could have completed this card without it!

I used two different Altenew inks for the triangles, Desert Night and Dusk. I placed my cardstock in the Misti, lined up my first stamp, inked it up and stamped. Whew. So far so good! Then I cleaned off my stamp and turned it upside down, lined it up, and stamped the Dusk triangle. I repeated the process until I had a strip all the way across.

Let me interrupt with a little secret, I actually had to stamp this card out four times. Yep. It was a little tricker than I thought to get the spacing between the triangles just right. Not to mention keeping them straight! I persevered though!! Once it was done (and dry!) I went back and erased my pencil lines.

Next I came in with a copic safe black marker and a T ruler. I wanted to add that extra bit of detail the black lines would add. Then I used some gray copic markers to create the appearance of a shadow. I used N3, N1, N0 and colorless blender. I like how it makes it appear as if I have multiple layers but it is only one!

I stamped the Happy Birthday sentiment from the same Trigonometry set with the Desert Night ink. I also rubbed some of the Desert Ink onto a piece of white cardstock. I wanted to have a dark blue layer to go between the sentiment and the cardstock. Once that was done, I cut the pieces down to size and glued them onto the cardstock.

For the final touch, I cut off about a 1/4" from the bottom of the cardstock and mounted it to a dark blue card base. This lets just a little bit of the blue base show at the top and bottom of the card. I think it makes the blues pop!

Saturday, December 8, 2018

Hello there! I hope your aren't getting tired of seeing new posts from me lately. I have been on a bit of a roll. I completed my fourth class for the Altenew Educator Certification program. This class was entitled Easy Ink Blending Techniques. The title definitely speaks for itself. We jump into the world ink blending. It's full of lots of great techniques and tips.

Although I am not using it in my card today, I was really taken with how they added extra details to ink blended pieces. It was very cool! I went with my favorite technique from the class, emboss resist.

I started by cutting a piece of Bristol Smooth cardstock down to 4 1/4" x 5 1/2". Bristol is highly recommended for ink blending. The surface is extra smooth allowing for the inks to blend almost effortlessly. I broke out one of my newest Altenew sets, Frosted Garden. I am quite enamored with this set! I stamped one of the floral images with Versamark ink and stamped it in several places on the cardstock. I then sprinkled a white pearl embossing powder over the stamped flowers and melted it with my heat tool. There were a few areas that I felt were too open so I went back with a very small leaf stamp. I repeated the stamping and heat embossing.

Now, what colors to use for ink blending? Always so hard to choose! I tried to stay away from my favorites (blue and purple) and go outside of my box. After a little internet surfing I settled upon a green range. They are so pretty together! The colors are Pine Needles, Cracked Pistachio, Evergreen Bough and Iced Spruce. The last decision I need to make was whether to use regular Distress Inks or Distress Oxides. I settled on the oxides so that I would have a softer overall look.

I worked my from darkest to lightest. I did use a foam blending tool to apply my inks. I applied all of the colors and then worked my way back to the beginning. This helps to smooth and blend the colors even further. The key is to work slowly. Don't be afraid to start light and keep building up your layers. You can't go lighter but you can always go darker! When I was happy with the blending I spritzed the entire piece lightly with water. I let it sit for about 10 seconds and blotted it up with a clean paper towel. I heat set it for just a bit to make sure it was fully dried.

Now that I had this gorgeous blended panel I didn't want to cover up hardly any of it! I cut a strip of dark gray card stock and put it towards the bottom of the card. Then I cut a slightly wider piece of heavy vellum. After I treated it with anti-static powder, I stamped the sentiment using black Versafine ink. I sprinkled on the same white pearl embossing powder and used the heat tool. I really wanted the sentiment to have the same shimmer as the rest of the card. Plus I felt the black would be too harsh. It turned out as a dark silver. Very pretty! I did want to mention that the sentiments are from the same Frosted Garden stamp set.

In order to attach the vellum I just wrapped the pieces of the strip around to the back of the card and used an adhesive tape to glue it in place. For a little bit extra I used some sparkling confetti sequins. I cut an 1/8" of an inch off of the top and one of the sides. I mounted it onto a white, A2 sized, top fold card base. I felt it would give the blended piece just a little bit of a pop.

Monday, December 3, 2018

Look at that! I'm back again almost lickety-split with another coffee themed card to link up for the Coffee Lovers blog hop! Did I mention how much fun I have making these coffee themed cards??

This card was also a labor of love. During the recent 30 day coloring challenge hosted by Kathy Racoosin, I colored up this sweet Holiday Anya 6 from The Greeting Farm. I did two versions. One stamped with black and the other with Inkon3 fadeout ink. I really wanted to do some no line coloring. I'm not going lie, it's hard for me! I am however pleased as punch with how she turned out!

Here are the Copic colors I used:

Hair-B02,23,24 & 28

Collar/Shirt tails-T1, 3, 5

Sweater-V04,06,09

Skirt-V01, 04

Mug-BG32, 34, 23

Marshmallow-E42 & colorless blender

Skin-E00, 11, 13, 21

Cheeks-R20

Dots on mug-white gel pen

After I was done coloring, I added Nuvo aqua shimmer in glitter gloss (love this stuff!). As soon as it was dry I went ahead and cut her out with scissors. I decided to leave a small white border all the way around. For the little section between her feet I used a craft knife.

I pulled out three patterned papers from the Doodlebug Frosty Friends paper pad. I have been trying to actually use my patterned papers instead of hoarding them. It's SO hard!! I just want to admire the paper all day long. LOL! I cut the dotted aqua/green paper with an oval die from MFT Stamps. The striped paper I cut out using a rectangle die from Mama Elephant. The white paper is cut out with another rectangle die from the same Mama Elephant die set.

I dug through my colored cardstock collection and found a pretty purple that matched so I cut an A2 sized cardbase. I glued each piece in place and added Holiday Anya on top. I didn't use any foam tape for any of the layers. Then I stamped the Mugs & Kisses sentiment that comes with Holiday Anya in a gray ink onto white paper. I didn't have quite the right shade of blue so I took my B28 copic to a piece of white paper to make my own! I layered it with the sentiment and this was popped up with foam tape.

I though some sequins would add some extra sparkle but I ran across these assorted snowflakes that I got as a freebie gift from Lawn Fawn. I glued them around wherever I thought they looked right. There you have it. I am quite enamored with this card. Hope you like it too!

Don't forget to make some fall/winter coffee/tea/cocoa themed cards and link it up right HERE! Be sure to use #fallwinter2018clh!

Saturday, December 1, 2018

Another one of my favorite times of year has arrived at last. The Fall/Winter Coffee Lovers blog hop!!! The chance for me to ink up some of the coffee themed stamp sets I have been shamelessly collecting. It totally justifies their purchase, right?? Anywho, I'm hoping to complete several cards for this round so wish me luck.

Here is my first card to share!

I used this adorable digital stamp from 2 Cute Ink called Penelope Cat. You can purchase her right HERE. I printed her out onto Cryogen White Copic safe cardstock. I had already pre-picked the main piece of patterned paper I wanted to use so I went through my Copics looking for colors that would match. Here is the list of colors used.

Cat T1, T3, T5

Cheeks & inner ears R00

Table E71, E74, E77, E79

Coffee E23, E27

Mug & Flowers YG61, YG63, YG67

Scarf RV63, RV66, RV69

Once she was all done I moved on to the rest of the pieces. I cut her out with a Wonky Rectangle die from MFT Stamps. I handcut a thin green layer out of a coordinating solid green cardstock from Stampin' Up. Now, can we talk about this background?? The base aqua coffee patterned paper is from an older paper pad. It is called Winter Wonderland from Pebbles. I also pulled the pinkish patterned paper from the same paper pad. Now came some more fun. I cut it with a plaid die! My crafty heart goes a little mushy when I get to use this die. It is the Diagonal Plaid die from Lil' Inker Designs. It's awesome.

I glued the coffee print paper to a pink cardbase. Next came the plaid pinkish paper, the green layer and the cat layer. For the final touch I added some different sizes of sparkling clear sequins from Pretty Pink Posh. And that's it. It's a pretty simple card even with the Copic coloring. I encourage you to check out the 2 Cute Ink Esty store here. I also want to encourage you to play along with the Coffee Lovers blog hop.

Friday, November 30, 2018

Hello my friends! I just finished up another class for the Altenew Educator Certification program. This time the class was Clean & Simple Boutique cards. This one was jam packed full of great tips and ideas. I've been jotting notes while watching the videos and lets just say I took a lot of notes! It got my mind full of so many different ideas it was hard to pick just one to create for my submission. Here it is!

The main theme of the class was to make a card simple yet stylish. There were lots of gorgeous examples in class. I learned how to add little extras that make your cards elegant while keeping them simple. They suggest adding foil and provide multiple ways to add it. I remembered I had a Minc toner ink marker just waiting to be used. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to break it out of the package!

I started by cutting out a piece of Bristol smooth cardstock to 4 1/4" x 5 1/2". I used Bristol because I wanted to use my Zig Clean Color real brush markers. I would have used the Altenew watercolor brush markers but I don't have a set yet (on my Christmas wishlist!). The colors I used were Persian Blue, Ochre and Deep Green. I carefully applied color down where I wanted it to be darkest. Then I went back with a waterbrush and pulled the color out. I always keep a paper towel handy as well to dab off my brush if I want even lighter color.

Next I stamped the Thanks sentiment with black ink that is also in the Enchanted Iris stamp set. Once everything seemed good and dry, I got out my Minc toner ink marker. I had never used it before so I didn't know what to expect. It worked like a charm! I used my T ruler to make sure I would have a straight line and drew it in with the marker. It only took a minute or so to dry. During that time I started up my Minc to preheat. I then cut a strip of gold foil just big enough to cover the line I drew. I put everything in place in the folder and ran it through the Minc. It worked awesome!

At this point I had to hold myself back from adding sequins and such. The idea WAS to keep it simple. I added some splatters of the blue ink by scribbling my marker on a block and adding water. Then I dipped a paint brush in it and splattered away. I also did splatters with gold paint to help tie in the gold foil line. I trimmed off an 1/8th of an inch from 2 sides so it would be slightly smaller than A2 size. I had the perfect blue cardstock to make a cardbase. It really makes the flower pop! I did add craft foam behind the flower panel before adhereing it to the blue base.

This class was really enjoyable and can't wait to get started on the next one! Thanks for dropping by!

Saturday, November 24, 2018

Good evening my crafting friends! I finished another class for the Altenew Educator Certification program last week. With a few extra days off I was able to come up with a card design for my next submission.

The class is called All About Layering 2 and is basically a continuation of the first class. It provides many helpful tips on how to get perfect alignment for several more Altenew sets. I have found this is making me itch to add to my collection of Altenew stamps! Dangerous side effect! There were several lovely examples of the cards in use and gave me a springing off point for creating my own design.

I had so much fun making this card! I know that the Garden Hydrangea set has lots of great layers to use but I wanted to see what I could do without using the other layers. I decided to use alcohol inks to try and create the look of hydrangea colors. I love how hydrangeas come in various shades depending on your soil acidity. I picked out Pink Sherbert, Cool Peri and Cloudy Blue alcohol inks. I grabbed a piece of Yupo, alcohol blending solution and my colors and went to town! I forgot to take a picture before I cut things up but here's a partial image to give you an idea.

I set this piece aside to dry and moved on to a piece for the leaves. For this piece I used Bottle, Meadow and Pistachio.

Once both of the colored pieces were dry I stamped the flower and leaf outlines onto the Yupo with Versamark ink. Then I sprinkled on silver embossing powder. I wasn't entirely sure you could heat emboss on Yupo since it is plastic. The most important tip is to preheat your heat gun! I very carefully melted the embossing powder moving my heat tool around frequently. Side note--this will make the Yupo paper curl. You can fix this with a liberal application of a strong adhesive or you can let the curl work for you as I did with the leaves. I don't have the matching dies for this set so I cut out all my pieces by hand.

On to the card base. I cut a white piece of paper down to a vertical A2 size. The front flap I cut about half way down with a shaped and stitched edge die. I cut a gray piece of cardstock to A2 size and adhered it behing the cut card front flap. Why didn't I just make it a gray card and add a piece of white? Well, I had a different plan that didn't quite work out but I didn't want to waste my paper!

I played around with my flower and leaves until I was content with the layout. The top green leaf is glued down entirely to the card base. The green leaf the overlaps it only has glue on about the bottom 3rd. This lets the leaf still curl up to give it more dimension. The third leaf is also glued just on a portion of it. I did not want my hydrangea flower to be all curled up so I liberally applied many pieces of foam tape. I adhered this on top of the leaves.

From the same stamp set I stamped the hello sentiment with black Versafine ink, sprinkled clear embossing powder over the top and melted the powder. For my finishing touches I add some clear crystals and clear bubbles that look kind of like dew drops. I glued them in place with Glossy Accents.

Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Thanksgiving is almost here! Yikes. I can hardly believe it. That means Christmas is going to sneak up on me so fast! Deep breath. I wanted to squeeze in one more fall card before it becomes all Christmas all the time. Seeing how tomorrow is Thanksgiving, I figured a Thanksgiving themed card was in order.

I started by printing out this little guy onto natural white Neenah cardstock. I had already picked out the plaid paper to use so I grabbed my copic color chart and started picking markers. Here are the colors I used:

Once I was all done with coloring I used my Scan n Cut to cut him out with a little border. I went back to the plaid paper. This is from Carta Bella's Fall Blessings paper pad. I pulled out two other patterns that went well with the plaid. An orange and a green. I really wanted a non standard die shape for my layers so I went digging through my stash. I found these beautiful Label 55 dies from Spellbinders. I cut the green and the orange papers with different sizes of the same die set. Then I cut the plaid paper with a scalloped rectangle die from Mama Elephant.

I sponged the edges of the plaid paper with a mossy green. I decided to cut my label dies so that they would be flat on the bottom and line up with the stitched edge of the plaid paper. I sponged the edges of the orange paper but left the green one alone. I glued the mouse directly onto the green paper and glued the rest of the layers together. These were then glued onto a Neenah natural white card base.

I stamped the Happy Thanksgiving sentiment onto another piece of the Neenah paper with the same mossy green ink I used to sponge the plaid paper edges. I cut it down to a small rectangle and sponged those edges with the orange ink. I used a piece of foam tape on the back to pop it up from the card.

I thought it needed just a little something more. I didn't quite like the look of sequins but I did find these gorgeous gold gems from Pretty Pink Posh in my stash. Just perfect. And that's it! I hope you like my little mouse card and that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

You can pick up the Pumpkin Mouse digital stamp right HERE in the 2 Cute Ink Etsy store. Be sure to check out all of the great digital stamps Heidi has in her shop! Come on over and check out her Facebook group too! 2 Cute Ink Digital Stamp Fans

Sunday, November 18, 2018

Happy Sunday everyone! Recently I received word that I had been accepted into the Altenew Educator Certification program. I am so very JAZZED! I have to say that I love all things Altenew and I am looking forward to learning lots of new things. I find things that challenge me also make me a better crafter!

The very first class is called All About Layering 1. As you can guess, it's sort of a beginning guide for using their layering stamps. I did learn some trips and tricks during this class to line up the stamps better! For each class we need to create a project at the end for submission and a little bit about what we learned during the course of the class. Let me share my photo first.

The set that I used is called Totally Tropical and I think this is the first time I have actually inked it up. I'm not sure why I waited so long!

I think the thing that jumped out at me most was the idea of layering your stamped images in three different levels. Sure, I am used to doing two layers but for some reason I don't think of doing three. Basically you stamp directly on the paper, stamp on another paper, cut it out and glue directly to the base paper and the third layer is popped up on foam tape. Pretty darn cool!

For this card, the majority of images were stamped directly on the card base. The top leaf was colored on another piece of paper, cut out by hand and glued onto the base. The top orange flower is popped up on foam tape.

For the leaves I used Aqualicious and Teal Cave inks. For the popped up orange flower I used Autumn Blaze and Firebrick inks. For the direct stamped orange flower I used Orange Cream and Autumn Blaze. The little yellow flowers were stamped in Honey Drizzle.

I think it is hard to see in the photo but I did add some extra details. I used a Nuvo Aqua Shimmer Glitter Gloss pen on the top teal leaf and and over the darker orange areas on the popped up flower. Before I adhered the two layered pieces, I used my Score Buddy to add two horizontal embossed lines and two vertical embossed lines. They were both spaced a 1/2 inch apart. They intersect right about where the two flowers overlap in the middle.

For the sentiment I first stamped it in black ink. Then I shifted it just a little and stamped it with a gray ink to give it a shadow. There you have it!

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Howdy and hello! I don't know about your neck of the woods but it has taken an abrupt turn to the cold here. Yikes! I'm really not ready for this at all. I am ready to create with adorable winter type images though. One of the newest digital stamps "Marshmallow Snowman" from 2 Cute Ink fits the bill.

Can you handle the cuteness?!!

I reduced the transparency of the digital stamp so it would be gray instead of black. I then printed it out onto watercolor using my laser printer. Then I picked out several distress inks to use as my watercolors. I ended up with Chipped Sapphire, Blueprint Sketch, Peacock Feathers and Tumbled Glass. I put clean water down first all around the snowman. I then used a palette to squish the pads against. I added water to give them a liquid consistency. I just started randomly adding the colors to the water already on the background. I let it sit overnight to dry.

The next day I picked up where I left off. I mixed a little bit of Pumice stone with water and silver Finetec watercolor. Again I put down clean water first in the snow area. I used a brush to dab on the Pumice Stone mixture. I heat set it and then went back to add more layers until I was happy with the results. I heat set it again.

Now I moved onto the snowman himself. I did all of the small areas first. Spun Sugar for his cheeks, a mix of Carved Pumpkin and Ripe Persimmon for his nose, Black soot for his hat and buttons and Wilted Violet for the scarf. I heat set everything. For the white areas of the snowman, I just kept watering down the black soot until it was pale enough. I concentrated the darker color near the edge and spread it out with water. After heat setting, I went back and added a few more layers to the scarf, the hat and the body until I got the dimension I was looking for. Heat set yet again. I wanted to have even more detail so I went over his stick arms with Black Soot. I used a black glaze pen on his buttons, his mouth and his eyes. Once the eyes were dry, I added little dots of white. I then used the same white gel pen to add highlights to the nose, hat and the snowman body. I also added the striped detail to the scarf. I mixed white paint with more of the silver finetec and lightly splattered the entire card front.

Once the card front was dry, I cut it down to a 4 1/4" square. I glued it onto a 4 1/2" purple layer. I applied a generous amount of foam tape to the back of the purple paper. My white card base is a 5 1/8" square. To the base I glued the striped piece of Doodlebug patterned paper. The striped paper is cut into 5" square. I then put all of the layers together. For the finishing touches I added a couple Doodlebug Sprinkles and a few drops of Crystal Stickles.

Now, hurry over right HERE and pick up this adorable digital stamp for yourself!

Thursday, November 8, 2018

Hello there my crafty friends! I'm here with another 2 Cute Ink design team project for you. Heidi keeps on creating these super cute images! I know I keep saying it but I can't help it! Without any further ado....

I'm trying to participate in Kathy Racoosin's 30 day coloring challenge as I can. These cuties were the result!

I lightened the digital stamp before printing it out onto Cryogen White cardstock. The entire image was colored with Copic markers. I did add some eyelashes with a very fine point black marker to the girl marshmallow.

Boy marshmallow: E40, 41, 43,44

Boy scarf: G40, 43, 46

Girl marshmallow: E40, 41, E43

Girl scarf & hat: E81, 83, 85, 89

Cheeks for both: R20

Fire: YR21, 24, 27

Log: E71, 74, 77, 79

Ground: W00, 01, 03, 05

I cut the whole image out using a die from Papertrey Ink. I cut a larger layer using a rose pink cardstock and glued the two layers together. For the card base I used a very pale gray piece of cardstock. I felt it needed a little bit more. I used a stencil, a pale gray ink and a stencil brush to create a little bit of texture on the base. You can see it if you look closely in the photo. I like the way it adds to the overall design.

Before gluing the marshmallows onto the base, I popped it up using foam tape. For a little more bling, I added dots of White Blizzard Nuvo glitter drops. I also added Stardust Stickles to the fire to give it some sparkle. That's it! I opted not to put a sentiment on the outside so I can use it for whatever I need later!

Now, you need to head HERE to get your hands on the Toasty Marshmallow digital stamp. While you are there be sure to check out the entire selection of 2 Cute Ink stamps. Heidi has over 300 digital stamps to choose from! For even further cuteness, come join her group on Facebook. 2 Cute Ink Digital Stamp Fans.

Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Like fall themed cards?? Head on over to the Dies R Us blog HERE where you can find complete details and tons of pics for the set of cards I created below. I just couldn't stop making cards! There's even a video!

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

I can't believe how quickly fall is already beginning to fly by. I want to hold onto this season for as long as I possibly can. I guess that means I need to keep on making fall themed cards to share so here we go with my next creation!

This scarecrow cat digi stamp is just so very adorable. You can add him to your collection right HERE. He's an absolute steal for $2.99!!

A whole lot of love went into this card. I'm sorry I forgot to take pictures along the way. I tend to get caught up in the creating and forget to snap photos. I'm working on it! The whole project began by playing with alcohol inks and Yupo paper. I love just sitting and seeing what I can make the colors do with the alcohol inks. I started by putting a bit of blending solution all over the piece of Yupo. Then I started adding random dots of Valencia, Rust, Meadow and Oregano. I like to use a straw to blow the colors around. Add a little more blending solution, more inks and so on. If you've ever worked with alcohol inks, you know how this goes.

Once I was pretty happy with my background piece, I mixed a bit of the gold mixative with the blending solution. I then used a paint brush to splatter some of the gold onto the background. I set it aside to dry for about 10 minutes. I grabbed a scrap piece of gold foil leftover from a previous foiling project. I layed it down on different sections of the background and rubbed it with my fingers. When you pull it back up bits of the gold stay behind on the semi sticky portions of the ink. Can you say instant bling? After it was totally dry, I die cut it with a beautiful die from Papertrey Ink. Love it!

Now onto coloring this little guy. I knew what size he needed to be to fit into the open rectangle so I sized him down and printed him out onto Copic safe paper. I then proceeded to make a huge mess on my desk by pulling out lots of Copic markers. Here's what I used:

Cat body/ears/feet: W3, W5, W7

Inner ears & cheeks: R20 which I went over with a W1 to tone it down

Outfit & hat patch: B95, B97, B99

Kerchief: YG93, YG95, YG97

Hat: E35, E37, E39, E59

Pumpkins: YR15, YR68, YR27 Stem: YG93, YG95

Grass: E31, E35, E37, E39, YG93, YG95, YG97

I used a white, gelly roll pen to add a details to the eyes, cheeks, patch, kerchief and pumpkin. I cut the kitty piece down to just a little bit larger than the rectangle opening so I could glue it to the backside of the die cut piece. I dug through my paper stash to see what would work as a background for the inked piece. I found this linen look piece in Echo Park's Celebrate Autumn 6x6 paper pad. I glued the die and the paper together. I then trimmed it down to fit an A2 sized card base and glued it on.

For my finishing touches I added some metallic gold confetti sequins from Pretty Pink Posh. Voila! Remember, there are tons more great digital stamps to be found in the 2 Cute Ink Etsy store right HERE!

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Howdy and hello to you all! I'm back today with some more good news to share. After being a long time fan (and collector) of 2 Cute Ink digital stamps, I'm now a design team member! That means there will be lots of cuteness headed your way!

Right now she has a Boo-tiful Challenge going on over on her Facebook group and social media.

You can join the Facebook group right HERE. The super cute, Boo-tiful ghost to use in the challenge is available HERE in Heidi's 2 Cute Ink Etsy store!

Now, on to my very first project to share with you!

This ghost is oh so adorable! I went for a fairly simple card. I printed out the ghost on Bristol Smooth cardstock because I knew I wanted to use Zig Clean Color real brush markers to color the image. I printed it fairly large so the image could be the showcase of my card. I added Dark Gray along the far left side of the ghost. I used Pale Gray to blend it out a bit and finished blending with a waterbrush. For the belt I used Deep Violet. I added just a touch of color at the edges of the belt and blended with the waterbrush. For the buckle I used Orange and went over it with a gold wink of stella brush to give it some shimmer.

For the cheeks I added the slightest bit of Carmine Red. I blended and blotted at the color with a paper towel until it was very pale. Then I painted the spider with the dark gray and the bow with the same orange. After everything was dry, I added clear wink of stella to the cheeks and the bow. I then used a stitched rectangle die from Lawn Fawn to cut the ghost panel.

The purple paper is from one of my (hoarded) Doodlebug paper pads. This one is from Ghouls & Goodies. I used the next larger stitched rectangle die from the same set to cut out the purple paper. I went ahead and adhered the purple and ghost layer together.

I went back yet again for the NEXT largest stitched rectangle die. This black layer is from the same Doodlebug paper pad. Did I mention I'm addicted to Doodlebug paper and sprinkles?? The orange layer I cut with my paper trimmer because I wanted it to be such a tiny border. This layer I adhered to a white, top fold card base. I put a generous amount of foam tape on the back of the purple layer and adhered it in place on top of the black layer.

I still wanted to add more shimmer to the card so I dug around through my stash until I found some lovely orange glitter paper from Lawn Fawn. I used the Coles ABCs (also Lawn Fawn) to cut out the word "boo". I glued these down with liquid glue to the ghost layer. Since you can never have too much sparkle, I added a few drops of Lilac Whisper glitter Nuvo drops. All done!

Here's a few more pictures just because!

Gorgeous glitter paper!

I think she turned out super adorable but I might be biased. Like this cutie? There are lots more to be found in the 2 Cute Ink Etsy store -----> 2 Cute Ink. Stay tuned for more 2 Cute Ink cuteness heading your way soon!

Thursday, October 11, 2018

Hello my crafting friends! I have a super quick post to share the cutest baby card I have made to date. Seriously. I can't handle the cuteness! However, I can't take full credit for it as it is an SVG cut file I purchased at My Scrap Chick.

We are having a baby shower next week for a co-worker and I was in need of a card. Her nursery is giraffe themed so I knew I needed to find something to match. Here is my version!

Squeal! This guy is just so dang adorable! I cut all of the pieces uses my Brother Scan & Cut. Before assembling it I sponged most of the edges with either mint or gray ink. After I glued the layers together, I added wink of stella to the gray spots. I drew on the eyebrows as they suggested. That's it! It wasn't hard to put together at all. It just takes a little bit of time to do the sponging and adhering.

You can purchase the SVG file HERE. They even have an awesome sale going on right now. Lots of great files to be purchased. They have several other adorable animals as well.